The Normalizer class

(PHP 5 >= 5.3.0, PHP 7, PECL intl >= 1.0.0)

Introduction

Normalization is a process that involves transforming characters and
sequences of characters into a formally-defined underlying representation.
This process is most important when text needs to be compared for sorting
and searching, but it is also used when storing text to ensure that the
text is stored in a consistent representation.

The Unicode Consortium has defined a number of normalization forms
reflecting the various needs of applications: